Image Gallery: A look at Windows Mobile 6.1 on the Samsung Blackjack II

The Samsung Blackjack II has been out for a few months, but will soon be getting an upgrade to Windows Mobile 6.1. I had a chance to use this cool device with the latest operating system and find it to be a very solid and responsive Smartphone.

These guides will help you get started with the Blackjack II and the CD contains ActiveSync and more.

The Dash is a successful non-touch screen device and compares well with the Blackjack II. The new iPAQ 910 is a touch screen device that is a bit larger, but has the same type of front QWERTY keyboard.

Here is a shot of the back of the Dash, BJ II, and iPAQ 910.

The Blackjack II has a very functional QWERTY keyboard. As you can see the keys are hard plastic pieces, but they do have good feedback and are well spaced.

There are a couple of shortcut keys on the Blackjack II with a handy utility to setup 18 more shortcuts. The keys are well spaced.

The keyboard is well lit in white and every key and character is easy to see in any lighting condition.

Here is a closer shot of the keyboard backlight.

You will find the left and right soft keys, send and end buttons, calendar and mail buttons above the keyboard. The directional pad also rotates.

The jog wheel actually rotates in a circular manner to move around the display. I haven't gotten used to this type of navigation method so I use it as a standard directional pad on the Blackjack II.

The indicator light has 7 different available colors and changes depending on the type of notification. The Samsung label shows up in different colors as the device is tilted.

The microSD card slot is on the right side of the device. It supports microSDHC cards, with current capacities up to 32GB.

The power button is flush with the top of the device and is adjacent to the speaker grille. The indicator light is on the front of the device in this same area.

There is a volume rocker on the top left with the cover for the Samsung proprietary port below that. You need to use the Samsung port for charging, syncing, and for wired headset connections.

There is a self-portrait mirror adjacent to the camera lens. The camera actually does a decent job of taking photos.

The back is contoured to fit well into your hand and is well designed.

The back is textured and has a soft almost-leathery feel to it. This adds some unique looks to the device.

The battery is not that large, but it is quite thick and higher rated capacity than the Blackjack had. It has easily gone through an entire day with fairly heavy usage.

The device fits very well in your hand and is very pocketable.

The iPAQ 910 is a bit thicker than the BJII, but is quite comparable. The Dash is the thinnest device and is a great piece of hardware.

The sizes are comparable.

These are two of the best Windows Mobile non-touch screen devices currently available.

The upper panel shows the carrier info, time and date.

The second panel down shows missed calls, voicemails, text messages, and emails to quickly give you status updates.

The third panel down shows you your upcoming appointments and lets you create a new appointment from the Home screen.

At first the Getting Started panel appears on your device and after setting everything up you can select to remove it. This panel lets you setup everything you could think of on your device.

The Music panel lets you view and play your stored tunes on your device.

The Photos panel lets you quickly browse your photos stored on your device.

Microsoft gives you access to the most used settings on your device, including Profiles, ringtone selection, background image selection, and more.

There are several AT&T services available on the device and most have a monthly service fee.

You will find an Organizer folder with utilities for Alarms, Calculator, D-Day, Notepad (finally the ability to create notes on a non-touch screen device), Smart Converter, Stopwatch, Tasks, Voice Notes, and World Clock. The Tasks and Voice Notes in this folder are Windows Mobile utilities.

The My Stuff utility is an advanced file explorer provided by Samsung on your device.

There are a mix of Windows Mobile, Samsung, and AT&T applications on the Blackjack II.

This is the first device I have seen that gives you the ability to assign keys on the keyboard to application shortcuts.

You get to add up to 18 custom keyboard shortcuts on the Blackjack II.

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